Done Did Dud

"Been gone a long time, I kinda lost my way," Wishing Well by Blink 182.


So much for one post a week. Sigh.


That was more than two months ago. Of all the things listed on the to-do list, only three were really done, the weekly reading, daily assignment-doing and one edited video. 


Since then, I have turned in all my assignments, moved house, said goodbye to two of my housemates/seniors and finished my exams. Two months? MashaAllah, how time flies. 


So I guess this post will be a semester wrap-up. Oh yeah, I haven't mentioned that the semester is over. Last paper was a few hours ago. Here's a brief summary of the subjects I took this second semester in 2011:


EDUC267 - Introduction to Curriculum and Pedagogy
Awesome, funny lecturer, made the lectures and tutorials enjoyable. Learned extensively about approaches to teaching and learning, theories and all that good stuff. Learned quite a lot about Australian education too, how they do things around here. Lecturer was a fellow amateur video-maker too, so that was cool.


EDUC265 - Educational Assessment
Again, great fun in lectures and tutorials thanks to the lecturer. Learned about the importance of alignment in education and its importance (so important that redundancy may be interpreted as stress). Made me feel like wanting to change the system in Malaysia (wow, bold statement there). Learned that Australia does not have a National Curriculum, making me feel proud that they're following Malaysia's footsteps (since Malaysia does, just in case you didn't know).


LING219 - Introduction to Sociolinguistics
Even though I'm a big fan of linguistics (especially of the socio-kind), I was not as satisfied as I thought I would be being in this course. I know I have to reflect on myself to find why exactly this course didn't match up to my expectations, and I'm doing that, trust me. But externally, the course was just too wide in my humble opinion. We were asked to learn too many things in too short a time. It would have been fantastic if the content was lessened so that deep knowledge could have been conveyed. That would have been brilliant. But overall, it was an okay course.


ANTH205 - Anthropology of Islam
I didn't expect to take this elective at the beginning of the semester. I had already enrolled in Dance, particularly because the classes of ANTH205 went on until night time, and the beginning of the semester coincided with the beginning of Ramadhan, so I thought it would be tough to buka puasa in class, and prayers would be tougher to execute due to the time constraints. But then, as the start of the semester drew nearer, I decided to enroll into it anyway, since Ramadhan was only a month-long and I am really into these kinds of things. The course was taught by a non-Muslim lecturer and I was the only Malaysian enrolled into it, with more than half the class being non-Muslims too. But the lecturer was awesome, really critical of the biases of Western scholars and media who put Islam in a bad light, as well as the scholars of the Orient who were bias as well. The classmates were cool too, and they seemed to be very interested in Islam, asking questions and being attentive the whole semester. I got to present my first presentation in Macquarie University in this course, and it was on Islamophobia. It was the course which I read the most in (I credit my inability to make videos to this subject), spending most if not all of my spare hours berkurung in the library reading the weekly articles and writing up responses. It was exhausting lemmetellya, but at the end of the day, very much worth it. I gained an insight into the practices of Muslims around the world, gained new friends, got to talk about Islam in the Malaysian context and learned about Islam outside it, just a whole lot of good stuff. I'm very happy that I made that switch before the start of the semester. Alhamdulillah.


And so concludes my first year of studies here in Macquarie University. My second semester here has made me feel like an out and out university student, spending most of my time in the library and overnight reading rooms, stressing over the possibility of not submitting assignments on time and all that jazz.


And now with the exams over, I may be able to catch up on my non-academic reading. For the holidays, I have Ustaz Pahrol, Ms Armstrong, Ms Piccoult, Mr Stossel and Ustaz Syaari to keep me company, at least for a little while. And inshaAllah I'll get back to making weekly videos, whenever time and space allows it. 


That's all for now, I think. Until next time, inshaAllah.


May peace be upon you.


Cheers!